Inspired By
Yolande Hoffbeck
by Johanna Tagada
Johanna Tagada is a French painter and interdisciplinary artist based in London and Berlin. Her photographic essays and illustrations have been featured in Oh Comely Magazine and The Plant. Her work can be found at www.johannatagada.com
“In 2012 my grandmother Yolande and I started a project entitled Les Plantes de Mamie in which I depicted her lifelong attachment to plants. Her house in the countryside of eastern France is filled with over 500 pot plants and her garden is truly a wonder. It is a harmonious and peaceful place that has been carefully tendered since 1960. Yolande has never traveled far from home. She calls this place her "small world". She loves the sound of the birds in the open garden and often wishes her inside garden, which is her entire house, could be more like the outdoors. Yolande’s attachment to plants is deeply emotional. She says, "I need them, they need me. They make me fell useful and I receive their positive energy. They are good company, and not just because I am old. There is something spiritual in caring for them.”